Koban: The Mark of Koban Read online

  ****

  The Tanga Clanship performed a White Out three hundred twelve miles above the planet, already in stealth mode (other than for the unavoidable gamma ray burst). It promptly vectored away from its reentry point, moving around the planet as it released thirty-two stealthy single ships.

  Parkoda wasn’t at all concerned with detection or attack on the Clanship. It was merely his desire to disperse his warriors efficiently, to allow them to land covertly and conceal their small ships close to population centers. This way he wouldn’t have to spend much time recovering as many warriors with a shuttle, assuming the prey discovered the craft while their operators were away raiding. Before the Clanship departed, it would blast unrecovered single ships of any dead warriors.

  The gamma rays were detected, of course, but this didn’t generate a planet wide alarm when no radar returns were seen. The Clanship’s unique arrival burst characteristics; previously measured at Gribbles’ Nook, were not yet part of Bollovstic’s Traffic Control Center database, so they ignored the presumed anomaly.

  The local government was aware of the Krall threat, but they were well down the list for Hub assistance as a nonmember of the Planetary Union. Something they would soon reconsider.

  This predominantly agricultural world, once considered definitely in the Rim category, was now flirting with Hub respectability, as other settled planets in the region became New Colony members. Their closest neighbor and frequent trading partner, Poldark, had joined the Planetary Union recently.

  Most of the single ships settled into the forests and hills near larger hamlets and villages of the more established agricultural regions. A few ships decided to accept the challenge of landings on the outskirts of the largest cities.

  The novices had no mastery of Standard, and nothing to say to their prey if they did. The warriors concealed their ships and started their hunts. Their raid leader had told them that the humans would be unarmed, and not expecting this raid. Their mission was to terrorize humans and to remind them that such raids would continue, taking place at random times and places, and would gradually increase in intensity and duration.

  The novice warrior, Potok, had never smelled a human, but had seen them in recordings. In twilight on the continent where she landed, she was near an apparent human nest, much like those their slave race of Pradas made in agricultural regions. She scented multiple animal smells, but was unable to determine which odor might be from a human. Having followed one scent through a field, and passing a pile of warm feces along that trail, she decided it was probably not from a human. Unless humans behaved more like Krall grazing meat animals than she expected.

  Her superb hearing picked up multiple sounds from a large red building. The big double doors were closed, and there were no windows. She dashed to the side of the building at a corner near the doors. The structure appeared to be made of woody native material, probably from the local trees. It was coated with some thin artificial surface, which an extended talon scraped away to show it was the source of the red coloration, with amber fibrous wood underneath.

  The wood had been applied in long parallel slabs that did not feel very strong. Up close, the sounds were much louder from inside, but it was impossible to tell if it was a spoken alien language. There were clearly multiple speakers.

  Through slender cracks between slabs of wood, she could see into a darkened interior, where there was movement. She also noted that the slabs were less thick than the base of her talons. She was confident she could break through the wall with ease, and avoid any possible trap that might wait behind the double doors. Parkoda had cautioned them that humans preferred trickery to direct combat.

  Her mind made up, Potok drew her two pistols in a blur, armor piercing shells in one, explosive rounds in the other, and rammed a shoulder into the thin wall, which gave way with a crash. She rolled into the building on the floor, firing at every startled cry and movement she detected. Realizing she was surrounded she fired indiscriminately at every target, reloading rapidly. They apparently had been waiting in small compartments to each side, hiding as they waited for her to enter by the double doors.

  The screams of the dying and wounded was thrilling to her ears, as her dark vision completed its couple of seconds of adjustment. She had fired and reloaded several times, and gory death surrounded her.

  With her eyes now adapted, she rose to her feet. Looking around, she didn’t see any mangled forms that resembled the images she had seen of humans. There were large and medium four legged animals blown apart and bleeding in stalls on each side of the aisle leading from the double doors. She had just managed to heroically, and single handedly, kill all of the human’s unarmed livestock. She was alone, so no other Krall had seen her humiliation, requiring a Death Challenge to silence.

  Nikola Milankovitch, his wife Vlada, and their daughter Mira were about to sit down to dinner when the explosions and animal screams from their cows, pigs, and goats erupted from the direction of the barn. He quickly ran to a front window as he flicked off the lights. He couldn’t see anything unusual for a moment, until he saw splinters fly from some of the planks on the barn. Ragged holes appeared in the boards, and animal squeals and screams accompanied the explosions. All of the chaos clearly came from the barn. There was a whooshing sound just before each of the blasts.

  Nikola frantically shushed the questions of his wife and daughter. Whoever was in the barn was obviously heavily armed and slaughtering their livestock. It seemed self-evident the house could be next.

  This particular continent of Bollovstic was subject to rapid moving weather fronts, with warm moist air mixing with colder air, much like the North American plains on Earth. Tornadoes and fierce thunderstorms were relatively frequent, and most farmhouses had storm cellars.

  Nikola kicked the rug away from a trap door and raised the hinged lid over the narrow stairway. He had to shush Vlada and Mira again, pushing them to descend as quickly as possible.

  “Hurry and be absolutely silent,” he instructed them. He bent to kiss them as they stood on the stairway. “Go down now, make no sound or turn on any light. The glow might be seen through the floor boards.”

  “Nikola, get down here with us,” his wife said, in a hushed but louder than-a-whisper tone.

  “No, whoever shot our animals will know someone is here, our lights were on before. I will put the rug over the trap door, and move the table to hold it down. You must guard Mira. Don’t let her cry.” Their daughter was only eight years old. Giving his wife her protective duty, he knew she would obey without further objection.

  Blowing them a final kiss, he lowered the door, quickly pulled the rug over it, and lifted the heavy table in a display of adrenaline driven strength to place it on the rug. He had placed just two chairs at the table before his repeated glances through the twilight lit window caused his heart to freeze.

  A nearly two meter tall apparition came out of the barn, not through the doors, but through a sidewall, in a spray of shattered planks. He knew instantly from the Tri-Vid images at the community hall that this was one of the aliens they called a Krall. They had one defining characteristic; they killed any human they encountered, no hesitation, and no mercy.

  Nikola knew what he had to do for his family. He pulled the loaded crossbow from over the doorframe and pulled on the long lever that drew back the carbon fiber chord. Locking and cocking the chord in place, he made sure he positioned the bolt properly. He had other bolts, but he knew this was a one shot opportunity.

  He cursed Hub laws that had forbidden manufacture of firearms. They were changing that law he had heard, but it wouldn’t help him now. Holding the crossbow in his left hand, he picked up the long handled ax he’d left by the fireplace with his right. Having seen the creature burst through the side of the barn, he didn’t expect it to do that to the heavy insulating log timbers of the house, but the windows and doors would be no barriers.

  He backed into a corner between two windows, with a view of the front and
side door of the living and dining room combination. He would hear if it came through a window of a bedroom or the back door of the storage room. It certainly hadn’t been using a subtle quiet approach so far.

  His aim just happened to be towards the window and front door to his left when the glass exploded inwards, and a massive body came through firing its weapons. Fortunately, it focused first on the jacket laden coat rack, also to the left of the door, so it wasn’t looking his way. He pulled the crossbow trigger almost by accident, startled by the shattering window and frame. He instantly started swinging the ax towards the beast as its feet hit the floor, and he took a step towards the thing.

  The crossbow bolt struck the alien in the side rather than the back it had presented to him when he pulled the trigger. The Krall had started twisting in midair as soon as the bolt had left the grove, as if it had heard the nearly silent weapon. Nikola let loose of the swinging ax just as the first armor-penetrating round passed through his lower rib cage. The projectile passed easily through his body and out his back, but he continued his step towards his killer, right arm out stretched towards the Krall. He raised the crossbow as a club in his left hand.

  The next three rounds of explosive and armor piercing shells ended Nikola’s further participation in the fight, as his head and chest exploded messily. He didn’t live to see the ax cleave the deployed left ear from the side of the Krall’s head, as she was unable to turn away as she fell to the floor.

  Potok rolled to her feet with a springing graceful motion, and whirled around to cover the rest of the room, which was clearly empty. A rapid search of the few other rooms showed the house to be empty of humans. She now had time to pull the bolt from her side, and the three-inch deep wound promptly sealed itself, and the bleeding stopped as the punctured lobe of that part of her multiple lungs shut down.

  The more embarrassing wound, the loss of her ultrasonic left ear, wasn’t particularly debilitating, but it would be obvious when she returned from the raid. Parkoda would ask why she had extended her high frequency internal ears when attacking humans. The raid leader had briefed them that only the Krall had ultrasonic conversation to overhear, the humans being mute in that frequency range.

  The bleeding by her ear also ended quickly, but her left side hearing was now impaired. Angry that she had “killed” the threatening looking clothing rack first as she crashed through the window, she knew that had allowed this slow moving creature to injure her twice before she made the kill. She would have to rush to a population center quickly to score more kills after this personal fiasco. She dove out of the same window she used for her entry, unaware of the two “kills” she left behind, right under her feet. The dead human had beaten her a third time.

  ****

  Humans sighted two of the landing single ships, despite the silvery reflective coating that made them difficult to spot in the daytime sky.

  Goran Milošević saw a small reflective ship descend into the canyon on the other side of the ridge he was prospecting. That was where his nearly played out gold mine was located. He was searching for a continuation of the gold bearing vein on the other side of the ridge. His first thought was of a claim jumper, so he was cautious as he climbed to the top of the ridge, careful to avoid outlining himself against the clear blue sky.

  Peering around the rocks and bushes at the top, he couldn’t see any sign of the small silvery ship, which he estimated was only thirty feet long, and perhaps five or six feet in diameter. However, he easily caught sight of the large red-gray man shaped demon in a black body suit. It was rushing recklessly through the tough scratchy brush at the bottom of the little valley, moving in the direction of Kragujevac, the town where he sold his gold and bought supplies.

  Fearful, Goran waited long after the demon had disappeared, passing around the bend at the end of the rocky canyon. Nevertheless, when he didn’t see another demon, and that one wasn’t apparently coming back right away, he wanted to see if his one-man mine was untouched and the entrance still concealed.

  Cautiously, he made his way down the familiar but steep sides of the canyon, where he had prospected for several years. He kept the location of his mine secret, even though he had a claim that included this valley and the next, where he had been prospecting today. Claim or not, he stockpiled his gold nuggets and dust until he could make a quick foray into the town five miles away. He knew of people that would rob him if they knew exactly where he hid his hard-earned wealth.

  When he grew close to the concealed mine opening, he immediately recognized that the covering dead brush had been disturbed. It was over the opening, but not in a natural arrangement like similar dead brush dotting the hillsides. Goran had carried the tailings away by hand for years, to keep his mine’s location secret, but the dead brush was vital to hide the color changes and the opening itself.

  The demon had replaced the brush in a clumsy imitation of the cunning way he had protected his mine for years. However, this wasn’t Goran’s main concern. Was his gold cache safe? He rushed down the rest of the slope and proceeded past his small cabin inside a dense grove of trees, built next to the small creek he used for water. The rickety cabin had been smashed open on one side, rather than at the only door. Again, he was concerned, but this wasn’t what he was so desperate to see.

  Striding directly into the cool water of the creek up to his knees, he waded to the side of a large boulder that water flowed around lazily. On the downstream side, he plunged his arms into the cool clear water to his elbows, and felt for the capstone he had placed over his hidden gold stash. It was in place, and a brief strain to lift it proved that his accumulated wealth was safe.

  He restored the capstone, and looked around carefully. Except for his footprints, no one had been on the creek bank today, so the demon had not found his gold nor even looked near here. He carefully used leafy underbrush to wipe away his own footsteps leading into and away from the creek. Then he examined his damaged cabin.

  The demon had apparently taken nothing, the only destruction had been the hole it had made smashing in the wall, large enough for it to enter and make its exit. The door was latched as he had left it yesterday, before he started his camping trip to prospect for a new gold vein.

  Goran was now burning with curiosity about what the demon had been doing at the mine entrance. It certainly hadn’t had time to dig, and even if it had done so, he knew there was almost nothing left to extract from the played out gold vein.

  He had forgotten about the small spacecraft itself, and looked around to see if he could spot its hiding place. He solved that minor mystery when he pulled away the brush from the mine opening. He assumed the little ship had used radar to see through his camouflage bushes.

  The slender craft was inside the ten foot by ten foot opening, with the dusty floor swept clear as the thrusters that supported the little ship blasted it away. It had been set down close to the right side wall, presumably so the demon could squeeze out of an opening along the left side. The reflective surface was now a flat dull gray, smooth and warm to the touch.

  Running his hand along the surface as he walked into the tunnel, he felt no breaks, just a minor depression in the middle, but the light was dim. He dug into his tool pouch and withdrew the small intense hand light he always carried. Setting it for a wider beam, he walked another forty feet to a side alcove. His small supply of explosives and code activated electronic detonators were untouched.

  He pondered why the demon had hidden its ship. It was clearly coming back or it wouldn’t have gone to the trouble. It had left in hurry but when it returned, it might have more time to search.

  “It might have time to find and take my gold.” He talked to himself, as he often did. “It can’t carry it away if it doesn’t have this for an escape,” he reasoned. The mine was no longer productive anyway, and he intended to abandon it soon. Why not use it to prevent the demon from using its ship to run off at all, with or without his gold.

  Now in a rush, he started carrying h
is explosives and detonators to the front of the mineshaft. The little ship was about twenty-five feet from the opening, and there was a high bluff over the mouth of the mine. That tonnage would seal the ship away from even a demon, he thought.

  In thirty minutes, he had placed enough explosives to bring the roof down, and he hoped much of the bluff above. Perhaps it would crush the damned ship. His plan was to collect his gold, and set off the explosives as he headed out of the canyon in the opposite direction from Kragujevac. No way did he want to run into a returning demon.

  In another thirty minutes, he’d gathered some supplies that he’d not carried to the other side of the ridge for prospecting, and had a backpack stuffed with his modest hoard of gold. It was time to move on if demons haunted this claim. There were many other promising places on Bollovstic to prospect. Looking back towards his labors of several hard years, he pressed the detonator pack without any regrets.

  He saw the dust and rock billow out of the mouth of the mine before he heard the booming echoes in the canyon. For just a moment, he thought the bluff would stand, but then it started to sag and crumble as it collapsed and obscured the mine opening under a thousand cubic yards of rock.

  Shifting his pack, he started for the next town over from Bollovstic, called Sombor. A smaller town, but it had an assay office where he could sell his gold. He wouldn’t be wealthy but he could live well for years off what he had saved.

  Later, after he learned about the Krall and saw they looked like demons, he would make a great deal more money out of the Planetary Union, for leading them to an intact buried single ship, and its advanced tachyon Traps and drive.